Urban Governance Quotes

Annexation is probably the most valuable tool a city has to ensure orderly growth and development.

I think of being the mayor of a big city with so many incredible things happening - but also so many challenges and opportunities - as really being kind of the chief advocate for the people.

Cities are those laboratories of democracy that states used to be.

Selling public property is the true Chicago way. Had Mr. Obama not been elected president, the nation's business journals would be falling over one another to praise his city for its daring, market-friendly innovations.

That has to come to an end and end now. No citizen is a second-class citizen in the city of Chicago. If my children are treated one way, every child is treated the same way.

Clearly, Mayor Bloomberg did some things right. I think he did a very good job on public health. He did a very good job on environment. I think he was right to achieve mayoral control of education. I don't think he then applied it the right way.

Knowledge and power in the city; peace and decency in the country.

The power that keeps cities of men together Is noble preservation of law.

We have two nations, and it's not black or white. It's red and blue. Under Republican leadership, cities tend to do better. Cities are destroyed under Democrats, because they don't know how to deal with the constituency; they're terrified.

The job of mayor of London is unbelievably taxing, particularly in the run-up to the Olympics.

I think it's fine when the mayor of the biggest city in Russia consults the president.

I have 15 years of executive experience as a big-city mayor and as a governor.

If you want to govern the nation, you should first be able to govern San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.

Being the mayor of the third largest city in the country, that's humbling, but it also gives me incredible hope.

My fight isn't with Charlie Hales. My fight is with the problems he has failed to address as mayor.

I've been mayor of the city of Jerusalem, which is perhaps, in some ways, more complex and more difficult than a ministerial position.

When mayors get together they probably have better conversations and have better notes to share about running different cities, and just do what suits. Basically, like when you combine all the religions and take the best bits, you should be able to combine all the cities and take the best bits, the information, the tried and tested things.

Mayors are judged by results.

That's what mayors do. They lobby Congress to provide resources for their city.

Being mayor of New York was a crisis a week and an emergency every other day.

People will give you the responsibility, even the authority, to go after the big things, the visionary things, the reaching for incredible opportunities, if they trust that you're running a city well. And if you don't run a city well, conversely, you can't do the big things.

The only news most people ever hear about the inner city comes from grim headlines; the only residents they can name are characters on 'The Wire.' Of course, ignorance of a community doesn't stop outsiders from having opinions about it or passing laws that govern it.

The city’s [civil service] workforce must be considered part of the solution, not the problem.

Chicago's privatization mania began during Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration, which ran from 1989 to 2011. Under his successor, Rahm Emanuel, the trend has continued apace. For Rahm's investment banker buddies, the trend has been a boon. For citizens? Not so much.

To deal with radicalism and extremism, we need to deal with economic inequality. This is what I learned from my experience in Solo and then in Jakarta.